Tag: 6 Music

Preston Venue 60 The Ferret – Part 1

The Preston Ferret has been a jewel in the crown for catching live music in the city for many years. It is situated on Fylde Road opposite the University of Central Lancashire Student Union building and for around a decade was a sister act to 53 Degrees when that venue was located across the road.

It opened originally as the Mad Ferret in 2006 by taking over the site of Preston’s first steam powered cotton mill, owned by local businessman John Horrocks way back in 1794. The first owner Frazer Boon introduced live music to take place on most nights including a Tuesday open mic session and the busy schedule of over 200 gigs a year, many of them free of charge, remains to this day. In 2013, a new landlord took over and removed the ‘Mad’ from the name and it simply became the Ferret.

The old Horrocks Mills Centenary building located on New Hall Lane. Image Credit flickr.

It survived the troubling Covid years by staging sit down safe distance gigs. Despite that its very existence was thrown in considerable doubt when it was unexpectedly put up for sale in 2022, however a crowd funding initiative was launched and the sale price of £795k was raised to save the pub. I for one was ecstatic at that news as these small venues remain essential to the lifeblood of the music industry, especially in regularly bypassed backwaters like Preston.  

It is an archetypal grungy and extremely noisy venue and that just makes me revel in it even more, and it was a handy 15-minute walk from where I lived at that stage. For many years, it was my most attended venue as I have visited there 42 times for live music, many other times just for a beer with no music witnessed. That total has just recently been matched by Academy 2 in Manchester, so therefore as of today (01/03/2024) it remains my joint most attended ever venue. Many times, when visiting there I have run into other Preston musos, Rachael Beattie and Nick Godkin spring to mind here.

The Mad Ferret days. Image Credit Ents 24.

Idles and the Orielles have graced the stage there, but I will relay two other tales in relation to the venue. In 2011, the promoter booked in a young Ed Sheeran who in between the announcement and the actual gig released his debut single ‘A Team’ which flew up to No 5 in the charts. Now, I do not personally understand the appeal of Mr Sheeran, but fair play to the lad he honoured the date and crashed at the one of the audience’s house and played them a personal set there.

My biggest missed opportunity was Jason Lytle who played shortly after the breakup of his band Grandaddy, of whom who I am a huge fan. For some inexplicable reason I did not attend and sincerely hope I was doing something very worthwhile instead!  

Jason Lytle cogitating on a new tune. Image Credit YouTube.

My first attendance at the venue was in August 2007, a week before I travelled northwards for my one visit to the excellent Connect Festival at Inverary Castle. Uncle George and I met Gill after a PNE match and visited the noodle bar that was located at the Ringway end of Ormskirk Road where I mentioned a gig at the Ferret I had read about the day before in the Lancashire Evening Post.

Thus, we wandered down to investigate and the band in question was Slippage from Seattle from whom the driving force was Alison Maryatt who has also been in Rocket Surgery and recorded as Allison in Wonderland. They were in the grunge vein and were excellent though I have found that sourcing any of the material today from any of those acts is rather challenging as there are only very sparse outputs available. 

Around a year later I saw a band called Pencil In who supported the headliners Ivan Campo. The main act are a folk trio who formed in 2006 when they met at the University of Central Lancashire. They have had several 6 music sessions and their single ‘The Great Procrastinator’ was featured in the soundtrack of the TV series Skins. 

In 2010, I witnessed Victorian Dad, an upbeat folky band from Wigan whose driving force is David Rybka. They supported singer songwriter Daisy Chapman who reminded me of Jonie Mitchell. She has been an on/off member of prog band Crippled Black Phoenix and has toured with Howie Gelb of Giant Sand, who interestingly have just announced their first British tour for 9 years.

Leeds Venues 20 to 22

I am this week returning to and completing the story of my visit to the Live at Leeds festival in 2021. This is a multi-venue wristband event with venues dotted all around the city and we walked and walked that day, covering around 27k steps.

The next site we visited was Leeds HiFi situated on Century Road. The precursor to this venue was the Underground nightclub as when that club closed its doors for the final time in 2000, the three original promoters moved lock stock and barrel into the new basement venue. They transferred all existing staff and retained all the original club nights in the new building.   

Leeds HiFi. Image Credit Ents24.

They hold a suite of DJ and live gig nights and reside mainly in the funk and soul and roots domain. Amongst others Nightmares on Wax, Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs and 6 music’s Giles Peterson have appeared there. They have also held comedy nights with Alan Carr and Reginald D Hunter having graced the stage, and weddings have also taken place there.

It is a small venue that has a nice vibe about it combining a nightclub feel with a traditional downstairs gig room, and this is reflected in its previous local awards for ‘Best Nightclub’ and ‘Best Live Music Venue’. The band on stage at the time of our visit were a local act called Van Houten and they provided a pleasing slab of slightly wonky dream pop, their sound reminiscent of Swim Deep and Fatal Charm. They released their self-titled debut album in 2019 and have just penned a decent new single titled ‘Coming of Age’.

We then sallied over to Leeds Headrow House which has a long previous history as a former textile mill and latterly an Inland Revenue site and is located in one of the oldest parts of the city. It now encompasses four floors housing an award winning restaurant called the Ox Club, a large beer hall, two roof terraces and a 150 capacity gig room.

Leeds Headrow House. Image Credit inyourpocket.com

There is also reputedly a large and probably spooky Civil Defence bunker located underneath the site. On stage that day was a rhythm and blues artist called Mysie from London who has had support slots with Corrine Bailey Rae.

Situated nearby on Cookridge Street is the Leeds Nation of Shopkeepers. Its current moniker provides a clear clue to its previous heritage as during the 1950’s it was known as Harris Grocers. It then morphed into the Corner Shop and the Courtyard Bar until rebadging under its current name in 2009. It has a locally renowned outdoor courtyard area known as ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’ and the establishment went through a major refurbishment in 2017.

‘Garden of Earthly Delights’. Image Credit tripadvisor.co.uk

They have a regular pub quiz night every Monday and have an all-day ‘foodie’ reputation. They have DJ nights and also live music in the multi-functional 850 capacity arts space. In those early days the likes of Willy Mason, James Blake, Death Grips, Darker My Love (who I sadly never saw) and Two Door Cinema Club played there.

Upon entering I thought it was a tidy eclectic setting, but extremely busy. On stage I could just witness a portion of the set from a London emo band called Sad Boys Club, who last year released their debut album ‘Lullabies From The Lighting Tree’.